Clean Algea Eaters

[Jazzzz]

my plec produces more poo than the rest of the fish in the tank put together he seems to grow like mad and is now thankfully too big for my tank so he can move to the family's 260l tank for now. so I have a fluval 120l ish tank that has only an apple snail for algea duties. what fish or creature will eat algea well not grow too big and not do loads of poo.

current inhabitants are 9 tiger barbs and an apple snail mostly live plants couple of plastic and dense ish.

current filtration is fluval 3+ internal soon to go once I can affoard an external probably fluval 205-305 as i hate cleaning the thing and it dosent seem that effective at filtering the tank.

has an air stone.

 

[england]

bristlenose plecs,,,,,4-5inches shouldnt produce to much huge poo, but as any fish all produce poo, a weekly syphon should take care of this, algae eaters as there often refered to in lfs are great but get around 6+inches and start as older to get aggresive

 

[Athena]

Hi - well I have 4 Oto's (Otocinclus) in one of my tanks that had an algae problem - since I added them to the tank they have cleaned it up nicely, acting like little vacuum cleaners. They are very small (about 1") and don't grow much bigger than that (up to 2" I think).

I've no personal experience of tiger barbs, so you would need to check that Oto's are compatible with them first. Also, it's best to get 3 or 4 Oto's if you can as they apparently thrive better in groups.

Regards - Athena

 

[Jazzzz]

the barbs are very active but seem to be calming down thankfully. would I have room 9for 4 ottos

 

[Miss Wiggle]

a sponge

in all honesty i think people quite often expect too much from fish, if you want an algae free tank then clean the algae off, if you want plecs, apple snails, ottos or any of the other common algae eaters then get them because you like them not because of what they'll do for the tank.

There's none of the small common algae eaters which are without their problems, and anything that's gonna clear lots of algae is going to produce a fair amount of poop, what goes in must come out!!

BN's, amano shrimp and apple snails all produce a decent amount of waste which basically just leaves ottos and they're pretty sensitive so a lot of people have problems keeping them alive.

if you have an algae problem you'd be betetr off looking into algae in more detail and working out what the root cause of it is and fixing it than just getting a fish in to eat it.

 

[Jazzzz]

its not a problem just a smattering all over the glass. Enough to be annoying but ok.

 

[Miss Wiggle]

its not a problem just a smattering all over the glass. Enough to be annoying but ok.

wouldn't be enough algae to support a group of otto's long term then IMHO

I know it might sound like i'm being funny, but just give it a wipe down with a sponge once a week when you do your water change and get some fish that you really like to fill out the tank!!

 

[Jazzzz]

how much space do i have would you say

 

[Miss Wiggle]

so it's a 120l (32 gal) tank and all you have is 9 tiger barbs and an apple snail?

you've plenty of room then, working on 1" per gal you've got 18" worth of tiger barbs and an apple snail which I'd count as 3". So you've got about 10" worth of fish to play with. If the tanks mature you can push to 1.5" per gallon which would mean you've got 27" of fish that you can add.....

Loads of room basically.

 

[Athena]

In that size tank with just 9 tiger barbs (have just had to google to see what size they reach and it says 7cms) and a snail then 4 Oto's should be fine - but please research to see if they are compatible first.

I've not had any problems with my Oto's, they are also very cute little additions to the tank as they are such fun to watch. If you have a major algae problem you might need to give the little fella's a helping hand by using a magnetic glass cleaner or a sponge scrub - and obviously you still do need to do tank maintenance and clean the gravel etc - but adding the Oto's has definitely made a huge difference to my tank.

You have to keep an eye on things, though, because if there is no algae left for them to feed on you will need to feed them something like algae wafers or veggies - they also feed on the ends of certain plants.

Athena

 

[Jazzzz]

yay i quiet fancy some cory's maybe some shrimp whats the name of thoose mini cory's

 

[Miss Wiggle]

yay i quiet fancy some cory's maybe some shrimp whats the name of thoose mini cory's

there's 3 species of pygmy cories

C. Pgymaeus, C. Hastatus and C. Habrosus

I think tiger barbs might be a little bit nippy and boisterous for them though, normal medium/large cories would be fine though.

 

[Jazzzz]

yay i quiet fancy some cory's maybe some shrimp whats the name of thoose mini cory's

there's 3 species of pygmy cories

C. Pgymaeus, C. Hastatus and C. Habrosus

I think tiger barbs might be a little bit nippy and boisterous for them though, normal medium/large cories would be fine though.

they are very nippy and boisterous so maybe a larger cory then is there a website that has most of the breeds on it.

 

[Miss Wiggle]

best to just ask in the cory forum